Mr Coppin’s Tour of Civil War America
Join Theatre Heritage Australia and Melbourne writer-researcher Simon Plant for ‘Mr Coppin’s Tour of Civil War America’ and a rare opportunity to see behind the front door of the Melbourne Savage Club, one of Australia's oldest private members’ clubs.
Simon’s talk provides a preview of a new book, commissioned by Theatre Heritage Australia, that meticulously reconstructs the 1864–65 journey of Melbourne-based theatre impresario George Coppin to the United States, when at the height of tensions between the North and the South, his hope was to present Shakespeare on Broadway with the eminent English actors Charles and Ellen Kean.
Using rarely seen images of prominent 19th century Americans including Abraham Lincoln, P.T. Barnum and Edwin Booth, ‘Mr Coppin’s Tour of Civil War America’ recounts these dramatic events.
Entertaining Mr Coppin: An Australian Showman in Civil War America by Simon Plant will be published by Theatre Heritage Australia in late 2024.
Celebrating 50 years of the Victorian Heritage Register